Excuse me Miss, but what exactly are you doing?

This was the greeting I got from a D.C. cop yesterday when I was driving downtown looking for parking after I had picked up my family. He knocked on my window so politely I thought he was going to help me find a parking spot. No, he was knocking on my window to ask me why I had been driving on the left side of the road. I looked at him confused and said "but I thought this was a one way road." I looked to my right and saw a long line of cars being entertained by my mishap and confirmed that there was a double yellow line. I definitely put the car in reverse and backed up half a block to the end of the line my head bowed in shame. Arguably putting myself more at risk than driving on the wrong side of the road.

GRRRRRR

This weekend a couple of things happened that made me feel like I could justifiably be in a bad mood, and I tried hard to be grumpy and here's why:

• Taxes - as if the sucker punch of finding out that I owe the IRS a significant amount of money wasn't enough, technology decided to go ahead and kick me while I was trying to recover and my e-file was rejected twice and I can't figure out why. I just want to give them my money, why won't they take my money. I'm beginning to question the quote Jeanette showed me by Emerson: "The state is a poor, good beast who means best, It is a poor cow that means well by you, do not begrudge it its hay."
  
• New Laptop - I purchased a new dell laptop one month ago, and apparently I should have heeded Grayden's doomsday prophecy because sure enough the operating system failed on Friday and I lost all my data. The good news is that I did only have the laptop for a month so I didn't lose that much and most everything is backed up. The bad news is I only had the laptop a month and it makes me fearful of what is yet to come and of course the warranty is only 21 days. Dell's customer and technical support has been less than accommodating as well.
• Dogs - two of them, I don't really need to say anymore on this.
• Losing to Peter at tennis - it was the only thing I could hold over his head in our rivalry, that I had beat him, now I have nothing and he is the most competitive person I know.
  

I really want to just mope around and be grumpy about all of this, but several things have kept me from jumping off that proverbial bridge.

• The Corry's (Mom, Dad and Steph) are coming to D.C. this week
• I got an A on my midterm and school is over in four weeks
• Serendipitously running into several friends randomly in downtown D.C. the mall and Kabob Palace this weekend
• Roommates who offer to take me for a ride in the bug with the top down and buy me ice cream (but wait I was off sugar this week, it really was the perfect storm of bad events)
• Spring blossoms and warm weather
• This song that Kristjan introduced me to
  
• Haircut and a new dress
• I have a week in Costa Rica to look forward to next month with Sarah and Courtney.
  

Lo siento that I don't have new pictures, but everything is on my other laptop, ugh, remembering the positives, remembering the positives.

The world as my class room...

Recently I've been trying to take advantage of my downtown office location and attend more of the ubiquitous free lunch and dinner seminars and events that are held at different organizations downtown. There are opportunities for education, entertainment and networking in pretty much any field you're interested in. Here are some of the perks: you get to rub shoulders with people who you can name drop later (that's a joke, no one outside of small policy circles would know who these speakers are), yummy free food, learning new, albeit generally useless, facts that may impress your friends later, avoid homework and put myself in uncomfortable social situations.

The uncomfortable social situation one has been a good way to push myself out of my mini-BYU world that I live in because some of these events I have attended alone. I soon realized that it's really hard for me to talk to guys that aren't Mormon. I need to work on building a small talk repertoire that works better for a general crowd. This is how the last couple of conversations with guys I've met at these events has gone: Names, jobs, where we're from, if they're from the west we talk about how we miss the west and differences between east and west, school and then there is two seconds of silence, I freak out and say I've got to go. And by go, I mean go get a mini-quiche and stand alone in the corner and try to avoid further eye contact. Yes I am 26 not 16, but I'm working on this.

Last week I attended a movie and reception for the movie Illicit: The Dark Side of Trade. It was a fascinating film at National Geographic about the illegal trade, which is estimated to total one trillion dollars a year. No small sum, but it talks about the effects on us as consumers of sometimes tainted products and on innovation and creativity if intellectual property cannot be protected. Here's the trailer:

Last night I attended The Human Footprint. This visually showed how much an American will consume in a lifetime. The presentation was creative, but the dramatic effect faded a little after the first twenty minutes, we ended up leaving early. It definitely helps to reinforce the fact that Americans consume a ridiculous amount of energy and goods, but at the same time it can be a little depressing because there's not a whole lot you can do to change the fact that we have to shower, eat and cloth ourselves. But I think we can all take steps to decrease our consumption without negatively affecting our standard of living. Here's the trailer and a few visuals for this film.


I have also been attending lunch events at different think tanks and non profit groups in the district. I will not bore you with anymore details, but I will put in a plug for those of you living in D.C., come learn with me!

Best practices week

Right now I should be asleep. But I realized due to bad sleeping habits I tend to get into over the weekend (staying up until 2 and sleeping in until 10) I can't sleep. So naturally I started thinking about goals and improving my life, okay I wish it were more naturally, but tonight I actually was thinking about this. I thought about how I'll get an idea of how to improve my life and I'll resolve to implement this everyday for the rest of my life. I try and it lasts maybe two days until I realize that this is totally impractical. It hasn't worked yet and I don't know why I expect that it will start working now. So I decided I need to not make five huge lifestyle goal changes at once, and I need to not expect that I can make goals that are all or nothing.
My new goal is to implement one "best practice" a week. This would be something that I wish I would do everyday for the rest of my life, but call me a pessimist, but I realize I won't. I hope that by following these best practices for a week, I can realize the effect it has on my life and at least make it somewhat of a more regular habit. Here is the beginning of my list, some are definitely easier than others, I figure I'll do easy, hard, easy, hard. What are some of your ideas?

• Pack lunch everyday for work
• Work out one hour a day
• No desserts
• Sleep eight hours every night
• Wake up at 7:00 a.m. each morning
• No internet after work (unless it's homework related)
• Scripture study one half hour a day
• No money spent on conspicuous consumption (only food other daily necessities)
  
• Eat Vegetarian
• Don't drive a car
• No gchat
• Call or email one friend I haven't talked to in the last three months each day
• Ten minute prayers night and day
• Listen to only classical music or church talks on my ipod
• One sincere, thought out act of service each day
• Don't go to bed until my room is completely clean
• Don't leave work until my desk is completely cleared off
• Don't leave a dish in the sink
• Invite one person that I don't normally hang out with to every activity I go to that week
  

Adventures with interns

Since I started my job almost (gasp) a year and a half ago, I have worked with the same four people, but occasionally we get an intern, it's fun to mix things up and add a little youth to the office, since the rest of my co-workers are all older than my parents. This last week we had a one week intern from Georgia, and she was a treat, for so many reasons. Thanks to gchat I was able to give my friends instant updates and ask for tips on what to do with my intern.

First I try to validate my need for an intern:

RKB: Since when did you have enough work to need/deserve an intern?
me: Ouch Ryan. I have been doing very important things today...ok not really.
RKB: just be sure to use and abuse him/her
me: of course send them to the copy machine to copy a 1000 page book
RKB: yes, and make sure it is a bound book so they will have to do it one page at a time

PK: I wouldn't really call your job work
me: whatever, I have an intern, I have arrived
PK: ooohh an intern, send em out to get you food
me: she did bring me back a cookie the other day
PK: How sweet
me: I'm a good boss
PK: so not a male thing to do

Then the intern comes...but I don't really know what to do with her. She just sits there and stares at me blankly (I know, I do have the tendency to cause people to become awestruck)
Luckily Grayden was full of ideas

G: just use for entertainment, make her stand on one leg, out in the middle of the office. Or sing "come sail away with me" when anyone says a secret word.

How I wished I worked the friends....

Then the fun really began when I related stories from my intern, who it turns out was a college freshman. We walked to lunch one day and she told me that she had thought about law school, but she was worried that she would be convict someone of a crime then they would escape from prison and murder her...right that happens all the time.

G: you should tell your intern that she's right to fear becoming a lawyer, I have to avoid death squads almost daily
me: but is that because you're a lawyer, or your mysterious/shady past
G: oh, well yeah, I guess you are right, but I always thought it was the lawyer thing
you should tell your intern that you have a friend who is a lawyer and who was almost kidnapped by the taliban and survived attempts on his life by the Fedayeed Saddam and who has a wicked scar on his chest from a knife attack

DJN: I love your intern, assassinated? WTF
me: and she was dead serious
DJN: Did you laugh
me: best intern moments from today
a) she brought me back a cookie from her lunch at potbelly's, I could really get used to this
b) she asked me if on a white house tour you get to meet the president
c) she told me that office supply stores smell better than any other store
DJN: spectacular on all fronts

Note: To those who I quoted, there have been some minor edits and combining of multiple chats.

And on an unrelated note. Happy Easter. Easter is fast becoming one of my favorite holidays and a tradition has begun for Sarah and I to play Easter Bunny. I think that was actually one of my very first blog posts. So we did it again this year followed by an easter dinner for 25, eggceptional! And nothing says spring like a picture of us posed among daffodils.

Life is a balancing act

This week has been action packed to say the least. I got TEXT announcements (what is the world coming to) that my dear friend and college roommate Liz is getting married. And that Des is pregnant. Those who know me well have heard Des stories she forms 1/3 of the formidable threesome Jenster, Mills and Deslee. As if that wasn't enough this weekend Uhle Street hosted an engagement party for former Uhle Streeter Suzy and her husband to be Stewart and all this made for an introspective, exciting and nostalgic week. I have realized that it hurts me to see that I can't relate with a lot of my good friends as they are going through this life changes, but at the same time I am so happy for them and this change and progression in their lives.
All of this excitement was compounded by a quick spring break trip to the Dominican Republic (I got back last Wednesday), Courtney's birthday party at Medieval Times Friday, a trip with good friends to Cici's (an all you can eat pizza buffet) Thursday, the arrival of spring in D.C. that prompted a morning roommate run, an all girl brunch, doubles tennis, and mountain biking at Foundtainhead on Saturday, and visits from D.C. ex-pats and good friends Jeff H. and Katy V. left me not hurting for fun. Then there are the logistics of my truly adult world with mid-terms this week, entertaining an office intern (she merits her own post which will come later) and prepping for Easter weekend.
Now that I've mentally vomited my last week onto this keyboard, let me post a few pictures to accompany the sound bites.
Here are the roommates (minus Steph) reunited and proudly showing off the results of an impromptu bridal shower for Suzy. We all painted our fingernails, I know that all these hands look a little creepy so I had to explain myself. We asked our friend to tell us which girls he would date based on our finger nail color only. After looking at our hands he decided Katy's color was hooker red and she would be easy, Erika was high-maintenance, I was fun loving and Jeanette was a hippy. Infer what you will, but it was an entertaining exercise.
That blurry body there is me. Coming down one of the 27 waterfalls on a hike we did in The Dominican Republic, which was called appropriately, 27 waterfalls. It was my kind of hiking, scrambling up rocks and swimming through crystal blue pools for two hours and then on the way down you jump off rocks and slide down natural water slides. B-L-I-S-S
This is Playa Grande in Dominica Republic. The beach was beautiful and relaxing, but getting there and away was another story. Our means of transportation included cramped mini-bus, three people on a motor cycle taxi, racist French surfers who picked us up hitchhiking and then finally a car where another passenger had an open container of alcohol he offered us and there were ten people in one sedan. The driver sat on someone's lap, there were two others in the passengers seat, four in the back seat and then two in the trunk. I loved every minute of it, while fearing for my life.
Friday was Courtney's birthday and to celebrate we went to Medieval Times where you are transported in time in a castle that is attached to the mall to the 1500's. It's unlike anything else, you wear a crown, eat with your hands, watch a performance where knights fight for the affection of a princess and battle each other in jousting and hand to hand combat.
Spence isn't sure if this piece of chicken is big enough for him. And yes we are a bunch of adults in our mid twenties and early thirties who consistently engage in activities better suited for nine year olds, I know, I know.

Stuff *I* Like

Last week I was introduced to this blog. I quickly realized that this stereotype that was being mocked on this blog was me. I opened the page and first read this post right after I took a drink out of my pretty Japanese patterned SIGG water bottle filled with water I had gotten from the purified filter in our gym. It makes this even more entertaining to read because I always felt that myself those around me truly feel like we are unique and different from the typical white Americans. But apparently all of us who think we are so different, can be neatly packaged into the person who is described by this blog. I absolutely love it. I think self-deprecating humor is something else white people like. Here are some more examples from my life (where I basically admit to stereotypes and make fun of myself) and please read the clever descriptions linked.

• #73 Gentrification Six months ago I moved from a typical upper class Arlington neighborhood to a neighborhood I viewed as more diverse and "real." I definitely have mentioned this as a sort of badge of pride to distance myself from little BYU world I lived in to the "real city" telling stories about living in Guadalarlington, a few blocks from a taco truck, and having my eleven year old neighbor tell me about all the gangs that exist in our neighborhood.
• # 72 Study Aborad I definitely have been on a study abroad, want to go on more and have even hinted to one day wanting to be a professor at a community college and lead study abroads. I also remember a conversation I had with a friend on a study abroad where we talked about how we # 28 don't like TV he was teaching english to his class and when he was teaching love and hate he was listing things that he hated and put TV. Very white.
• # 12 Non Profits when I moved to D.C. or was in college and people would ask me what job that I wanted I would say "a non-profit or NGO." I admit I still take pride that although I wouldn't call my work a non-profit our website is a .org
• #71 Being the only white person around I can say that whenever we go to an ethnic restaurant without fail somebody will comment on the number or lack of white people. I can think of twice that this has happened just in the last month. At both an El Salvadorian restaurant and a Thai restaurant and in both situations the person I was with and I agreed that this was indeed a good measure of food quality.
• There are many other examples, but as I write this I just feel myself start to cringe as I realize how this blogger has me pinned. But a few more examples just for fun and because I know that anyone who reads my blog definitely will identify with many of these blog posts as well. I do have a netflix account and do look at it as a way to see documentaries, foreign films and movies that you can't find at blockbuster. I do bike to work at least three times a week. I bought a separate recycling can for our house last week and wrote instructions for the roommates. Traveling and the outdoors are obvious for anyone who knows me at all.
• And here is a picture of me from last weekend's 80's party